There’s something undeniably appealing in the music of young bands. What they perhaps lack in song writing experience they make up for with balls-to-the-wall keenness and unabashed frankness. Creepy Crawlies – the debut album from Auckland four-piece Nevernudes - is a raw and exposed insight into the frustration, excitement and boredom of our teenage years.
Opening track ‘A Sitcom Family’ channels the drone of cult favourites Sonic Youth while offering a sneering critique of the boredom of home life. Vocalist Sheehan-Drent puts it simply with the line, ‘I could be someone else/ if I lived in another house”. This attack on a wasted and idle youth is a recurring theme throughout the album for Sheehan-Drent. From the jeering delivery on the early Radiohead sounding ‘White Teethed Teen’ to ‘Wonderbland’ and ‘Laying Down On The Concrete’, the album is rooted in a state of typical teen angst.
Despite the overriding theme of the songs, Creepy Crawlies is a mostly fun and lively album to listen to. The upbeat guitar and drum interplay of ‘Humdrum’ is nostalgic of hitting the road with 20 bucks and a sleeping bag at the first sign of summer while the heavily fuzzed guitars of ‘Oblivion’ and the live feel of the recording inspire images of a raucous house party. It is perhaps the fact that Nevernudes fit in so well with the sound of 90’s American grunge that they immediately fall victim to comparison and naturally struggle stack up to the benchmark already set.
Creepy Crawlies is certainly a development on the band’s 2009 First EP. Gone are the erratic structures and 2-minute tracks. Instead, the album presents a mix of punchy, minimal punk rhythms and pop rock hooks reminiscent of Fugazi at times and Pavement at others. Though, without the quirks and eccentricities so present on the album’s forerunner, Creepy Crawlies battles to distinguish itself from the last two decades of noise rock. Nevertheless the album is a solid and cohesive piece of work that shouldn’t be overlooked by any means.
